Vadra gets clean chit for land deals, Khemka says not aware

New Delhi: Congress president and UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law Robert Vadra was on Friday given a clean chit in connection with his land deals with the reality major, the DLF group, by a probe panel in Haryana.

Haryana IAS officer Ashok Khemka, who exposed the alleged irregularities in Vadra-DLF land deals, today said that he is not warae of any clean chit given to Sonia Gandhi’s son-in-law.

"I have not got any such order regarding the constitution of a committee, I have not been served with any notice to explain any aspect of the matter. The legal position is that the mutation stands cancelled," Khemka was quoted as saying to a leading news channel.

Khemka’s comment came hours after a panel of four Deputy Commissioners, which probed the case, said that no irregularities were found in Vadra`s land deals in Haryana.

The four-member panel began probing the case following an order issued by Khemka on October 12.

Interestingly, the Haryana government did not implement Khemka`s order cancelling the mutation of DLF-Vadra land deal. It merely referred Khemka`s order to a probe panel, which literally put up a hurdle into the whistleblower officer`s order to probe the dubious land deals involving Vadra.
While the clean chit given to Vadra by the senior Haryana government officials have come as a big relief to the Gandhi family, it has evoked sharp response from India Against Corruption (IAC) activist-turned-politician Arvind Kejriwal.

Reacting to the development, Kejriwal tweeted, "Haryana officers give clean chit to Vadra. That was expected. Country wud be surprised if it were otherwise (sic)."

The IAC activist also blamed Congress and the BJP for being hand-in-gloves in big ticket corruption cases and said that the two are sailing in the same boat.

"Now Congress will protect Gadkari and BJP will protect Vadra. Congress, BJP bhai bhai," he tweeted, adding, "Under IT Act - you can raid (sec 132) or survey (sec 133A) or scrutinise (sec 143) - what is the government doing?"

Whistleblower Khemka had written a letter to the Haryana Chief Secretary after exposing dubious land deals between Vadra and the DLF group.

Khemka was abruptly transferred hours after ordering a probe into Vadra`s land dealing.

After giving a clean chit to Vadra, the Haryana government is now going to probe Ashok Khemka’s motive in ordering a probe against Sonia Gandhi`s son-in-law, as per reports.